


don't be suspicious

by Nokomis



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Dynamic Duo of Beer Pong, Even Robins Have More Fun, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, House Party, Steph as Batgirl, Undercover, the ole college try
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 09:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11414829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: Probably Steph shouldn’t have agreed to help Jason when he showed up in the Gotham U library saying, “There’s a thing. Crime. We could stop it.”  But, well, no one’s ever accused Steph of making the best choices.





	don't be suspicious

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely Luna for beta reading!
> 
> This is set during Steph's Batgirl run. The Sapersteins here are (obviously) based on Jean Ralphio and Mona Lisa from Parks and Rec. I’m thinking of them as younger, terrible Gotham cousins. Title also from Parks and Rec because, honestly, that gif is Jason and Steph’s undercover investigative skills. 
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://nokomiss.tumblr.com/)

Stephanie was doing the responsible thing: sitting in the Gotham U library at 4am, exhausted to the bone from her Batgirl patrol, staring blearily at her laptop. The paper was due in five hours, and she only had three more pages to write. It was totally do-able. 

She would have already finished the damn thing if it hadn’t been for every two-bit thug in Gotham deciding that a Thursday night was the perfect time for a good old fashioned liquor store hold-up. She’d stopped four different robberies. Four! It wasn’t even the end of the month.

She blinked at her screen again, and to her dismay another page of text had failed to magically appear. She wrote another sentence restating the same thing the last sentence she’d written had said. Just do that another few dozen times, and she’d be there. Piece of cake...

She must have drifted off, because she woke up to someone shaking her shoulder.

“Wha---” she managed, trying to surreptitiously wipe the drool from the corner of her mouth as she jerked up into a sitting position. Her laptop was still glowing, which meant she couldn’t have been asleep that long….

Except for the fact that the screen was filled with actual Zs. 

“Please don’t let my paper be gone,” she muttered, frantically scrolling upward. 

“Hey,” said a bemused voice from beside her. “I could have stolen all your stuff three times over.”

She looked over, expecting to see some well-meaning college boy, and instead there sat Jason Todd. Scourge of the underworld, thorn in the side of Batman, and apparently amused at the sight of academically struggling Batgirls.

“But you didn’t,” Steph said. She squinted at her screen again and focused in on the time. “Oh, god, it’s morning!”

“Technically,” Jason said. “Though an ungodly hour of it.”

Like he wasn’t the one who had just woken _her_ up. She was grateful, but, total hypocrite.

“I do not have time for sass,” Steph said, making an attempt to erase her sleep-keyboard smashing and trying her best to ignore Jason. “This damn paper is due in a few hours and I fell asleep.”

Jason was not someone who easily accepted being ignored. “You actually… You’re actually doing the college thing.”

Steph let out a sigh as she found actual useable text. She’d written more than she thought before falling asleep; she only needed a few more paragraphs to hit the minimum page requirement. “Yes, I’m actually keeping up with my college classes instead of dropping out like the rest of you.” She didn’t add the ‘except Babs’ because it was understood, because Babs was a goddamn hero on all fronts.

Jason said after a moment, “I didn’t drop out of college, I dropped out of high school. There was this whole dying thing.”

Steph gave him a sunny smile and said, “There’s such a thing as a GED, you know. And once you get one, they let you into college. Easy peasy.”

“I--” Jason had clearly never considered either path. “Paperwork is a bitch for the undead.”

Steph shrugged and started typing as many words as possible to pretend like she understood her topic. This paper wasn’t one of Babs’ assignments so she could get away with a certain amount of BS. “It is, but it can be done.” 

Granted, a lot of her returning-to-the-land-of-the-living paperwork had been handled by Babs. At least a quarter of it had been somewhat illegal. Surely the same had been done for Jason--

Though, he had made a pretty bad first post-resurrection impression, what with all the murder.

“You really think I can just be a normal person?” Jason asked. He leaned back in his seat, and was watching her in a way that seemed -- not predatory, but more than contemplative. “After everything?”

Steph was absolutely certain that Jason Todd did not seek her out in the wee hours of the morning to ask for lessons in normal life. . Hadn't someone ever talked to Jason about being a human being again?

Well. Bruce was involved, and Bruce was terrible at being a human being. 

“Yes,” she told him. “It’s easier, you know, to handle everything that happens in our lifestyle when you can go out in the day and be part of the actual world. When you can see what you’re fighting for.”

“I was crap at school,” Jason said. 

Steph knew for a fact how smart he was and raised her eyebrow. 

“Okay, I was too busy surviving to be good at school when I was a kid, and too busy dealing with rich assholes to be good at the private school Bruce sent me to,” Jason said. He looked at her screen and added, “That’s a comma splice.”

“Yeah, I hate rich assholes too,” Steph said, staring him deadass in the eye.

Jason let out a surprised laugh, running his hand through his hair sheepishly. It had the disarming effect of making Jason actually look his age, which wasn’t all that much older than Steph. 

“Did you… I mean, I assume you wanted something?” Steph said, because there was no way he’d just happened upon her in a study room in the Gotham U library.

“Yeah,” he said, reluctantly. “There’s a thing. Crime. We could stop it.”

“Eloquent,” she teased, then said, “Can it wait another hour while I finish this damn thing? It’s worth a quarter of my grade, and I do not want to take a damn required-related twice.”

“Yeah, probably no one will get murdered in the next hour,” Jason said, and Steph was pretty sure he was fucking with her. Like. Eighty percent sure. 

She finished the damn paper at warp speed, though. It was made simpler by the fact that Jason went off to search for coffee for them. Amazing how it was so much easier to do work without being under the scrutiny of someone who-- well, he definitely wasn’t a stranger, not with all they knew about each other, but she couldn’t recall a single actual conversation between them. If anything he was like a distant cousin, whose life she’d been updated on but who never crossed her path. 

It was far more comfortable than it should have been, really. Steph wasn’t quite sure why she had apparently brought it on herself to be his life coach over the course of half a conversation, but obviously someone needed to. It wasn’t like it was her first time, and look at how awesome it had turned out with Cass. Damian was still up in the air.

Jason took his sweet time getting the coffee, and Steph had just sent the paper off to grading hell when he arrived. He settled a whipped-cream topped delight of a drink down in front of her and she had to stop herself from declaring her love, remembering just in time that they were not on that tier of friendship yet. 

Probably they weren’t on any tier of friendship yet, but she was willing to overlook that technicality since they were both former Robins. Robins had to stick together, especially the brutally murdered ones.

“Walk with me?” Jason asked after she’d packed her stuff up, and she nodded.

It was weird, walking through campus in early morning light with someone she knew exclusively from her night life, and she kept stealing peeks at him. WIthout his mask and guns and armor he looked like every other college boy, albeit a bit on the bad boy side, what with the leather jacket and swagger. She wondered what he would say if she called his white streak rakish. 

She doubted he would see it as a compliment. 

“I’ve been tracking down a drug smuggling ring,” Jason explained as they walked. He didn’t seem to have a destination in mind, and Steph had already planned on blowing off her first class in favor of writing the paper, so she enjoyed the leisurely pace. “And I’ve finally found a weak link in the chain.”

“Let me guess,” Steph said, “it’s one of my prestigious classmates.”

“Yep,” Jason said, grinning at her. Steph realized how public their entire morning had been, and she should have suspected that was by design. Jason was Bruce’s son through and through, no matter what they both seemed to think. “I need to have a valid reason to be on campus and befriend them.”

“So you remembered your friendly neighborhood Batgirl was a co-ed,” Steph said. “Nice.”

“It’ll just be for a few days,” Jason said. “Word on the streets is that the next big shipment is due early next week. If I can get the info I need subtly enough, I think I can stop it.”

“Ugh, does that mean I have to be social this weekend?” Steph said, dipping dangerously close to whining. “Jason. You don’t know me well enough to know this, but I very much treasure not having to go to stupid parties. They go so badly for me. Like. Unbelievably so.”

“But you’re going to have the coolest date,” Jason said, grinning hopefully at her.

“Oh, so now we’re dating? Where was the romance, Todd? That was weak,” Steph shot back. She was obscurely grateful that he hadn’t chosen to try to pass himself off as a cousin. He was cute enough that she’d be fending questions from her friends for weeks about when he was coming back. A brief fling, however, took him off the table and meant no one would ask awkward questions when he disappeared.

She’d come up with a truly spectacular breakup story about them. Maybe that he had a hobby of creating dueling frogs taxidermy and it creeped her out? She’d have to give it some thought.

“I didn’t realize you wanted to be wooed,” Jason said. “I mean, I did buy you the fancy coffee instead of stealing some from the librarian’s break room. I thought that would give me brownie points.”

Steph laughed. “Oh Romeo.”

Jason grinned back at her. This fake dating thing? Might not be so bad.

*

Jason took off after giving her a number -- she suspected it might not even be a burner, which was a truly epic show of trust -- and an actual folder with info about the marks. A folder! Steph was so used to working with all-tech all-the-time Babs that a cheap folder filled with printouts and scribbled-on paper felt extremely cool, like she was an actual detective working the beat.

She made sure the folder was carefully zipped away when she went to have lunch with Babs. Babs was somewhat distracted -- Steph peeked over her shoulder at her tablet enough to see that she was doing some Justice League-related world saving, which was pretty impressive given that she was also eating lunch without dropping any of her salad toppings on her white top. Steph could never. 

“So last night was just the robberies?” Babs asked while casually breaking through into LexCorp’s databases.

“Yep,” Steph said. She hesitated, wondering if she should bring up the whole Jason situation, and then just took a bite of her burger instead. He hadn’t said that it should be a secret, but…  
maybe she should see the lay of the land before bringing Babs in. “Can you believe four different idiots in one night? LIke. Is there some sort of Loser Criminal Signal shining over Crime Alley? And on a night when I had a paper due! It was just rude.”

“Did you get that turned in? You know you have to keep your GPA up--”

“Yes, Mom, jeez,” Steph said, tossing a fry at her. 

Babs laughed. “Any plans for the weekend?”

“I was thinking on giving the whole college scene the ole college try again,” Steph said. “I mean, multiple Draculas can’t show up more than once, right?”

“One would think,” Babs said, “though to be fair, Gotham.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Steph said. 

Babs’ tablet let out a low-level buzz and she cursed at it. “I’ve got to get back to the Clocktower. Green Lantern’s managed to screw this up--” Another string of curses, more inventive. Steph was impressed.

“Go, save the world,” Steph said grandly. “I’ll finish that milkshake for you.”

Babs didn’t stick her tongue out at her, but Steph was pretty sure she wanted to. 

*

Steph opened the file once she was at home safely ensconced in her bedroom. It was immediately clear why Jason had such a hard-on to get rid of these baddies-- they were selling an extremely potent and highly lethal party drug to kids, and the bodies piling up in their wake were getting younger and younger. Anyone who would sell this shit to a middle schooler deserved more than a punch in the face. 

Steph was, in the dark, violent corner of her heart, grateful that this case had fallen into Red Hood’s lap and not Batman’s. 

The link to Gotham U was legit -- the head of the operation’s kids went there, and by all accounts they were being groomed to take over the empire. She stared at their pictures in disbelief for a few moments. She’d passingly met Michael-Angelo and Duchess Saperstein, because literally everyone had, they were the loudest (in every sense of the word) people on campus. She’d also thought they were just dumbasses, but secret identities came in all shapes and sizes.

It also took away the fear that she was making a mistake by not bringing Babs in. There was no way that the Sapersteins, even if they were related to drug smugglers, could be a legitimate threat to Batgirl and Red Hood. They were idiots. She could probably handle them on her own, and she’d have Jason at her side. All signs pointed to this investigation being a grand slam, and Steph always needed a few of those to pull out as examples of her ability to do awesome, especially given her luck when it came to embarrassing flubs.

*

It was a piece of cake to find which party the Sapersteins were going to be at -- they’d sent out an invite with their faces plastered on it for a party they claimed would be ‘off. the. motherfreaking. chain.”

Steph texted a screencap of it to the number Jason had given her, and five minutes later she had a hot date. 

She spent about five minutes staring into her closet wondering if she should go all-out or not, and finally just went with her typical party clothes-- black leggings to make herself look like she tried, a cute top, and shoes she could run and/or kick someone in the face in. She was well aware of her own luck when it came to parties.

“One day,” she told the cute dresses hanging there forlornly. “One day, my friends, you will see the light of day.”

Jason picked her up a mile outside the Gotham U campus. He showed up on a motorcycle, because of course he did, and Steph was grateful that she had not gone for one of the dresses. 

She took the helmet he offered her -- it was _red_ , what kind of comedian did Jason think he was -- and was glad she hadn’t bothered to do much with her hair beyond brushing it. Jason drove like he did everything else: like the world was ending. Steph wasn’t even mad, she found herself laughing breathlessly at the too-fast turns he took, wrapping her arms happily around his midsection and enjoying the ride.

They arrived at the house just off campus too soon, and Steph swung herself off the bike with renewed energy. 

Jason took her helmet and hung both of them of the handlebars, smiling at her obvious delight. “You weren’t scared?” he asked, proving that he’d been trying to show off.

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” Steph told him. 

“You’re on,” he said, and Steph stepped under his arm and enjoyed the weight of it across her shoulders as they headed into the party.

The Sapersteins were renowned for their ability to throw an absolutely bananas party. Steph had never actually attended one, and had assumed all the chatter was exaggerations. 

She had been wrong. There was a bubble machine somewhere. A _bubble machine_. The living room of the house was filled with dance hits of the 90s, a million bubbles, and enough different colored lights flashing around that Steph thought someone should probably put a seizure warning sticker on the front door.

“Are you seeing this?” she asked Jason, clutching delightedly at his hand. “Bubbles. So many bubbles!” 

Jason looked like he was trying very very hard not to laugh at her. Steph did not care. Her only regret was that Cass wasn’t here to twirl in a bubble wonderland with her.

She took out her phone and snapped a pic, sending it to Cass. She would understand the glory. Cass understood joy in a way none of the other Bats did; that was one of the many reasons why she was Steph’s favorite.

Jason, bless him, didn’t even try to pretend like he wasn’t creeping on what she was sending. “Is that wise? I mean. That’s a secure line, right?”

“Okay, B-man Junior,” Steph said, “not everything is a security risk.”

Jason, she was pleased to find, turned a very awesome shade of puce when compared to Bruce. Steph was not going to forget that. 

“Should we separate? Find the targets?” Jason whispered. 

Steph was coming to realize that Jason was just as poorly socialized as the rest of the Batboys. It was oddly endearing. “I mean, we _could_ , but it would be easier just to, you know, go to where all the cheering is coming from. I bet you anything we’ll find them there.”

The cheering was emanating from what Steph assumed was the kitchen.

“Yeah, we could just do that,” Jason said, and allowed her to lead the way.

The kitchen seemed to be critical mass of the party, and Steph had to squeeze her way through to get to the cooler sitting on the table. She wasn’t sure how Jason managed to get his ridiculous shoulders through the drunken rabble, but he managed it. She grabbed a drink -- for verisimilitude, she told herself, even though verisimilitude didn’t require her to open it and take a long swig of blissfully alcoholic root beer.

Jason chose a boring, domestic beer, and Steph judged him more than a little. 

Duchess Saperstein, true to form, was leading a rousing chant encouraging her brother to do a kegstand. Steph raised a triumphant eyebrow at Jason, who had the gall not to even notice.

It was pretty obvious that it was the wrong time to scope out info about a potential criminal enterprise, so Steph followed Jason back to the living room. They perched on the stairs, and Steph slowly worked on her drink and popped bubbles that floated her way.

The one that landed in Jason’s hair, she left, and tried to subtly take a pic. She got caught, and the picture turned out even better, what with Jason’s admonishing look and the bubble perched jauntily on his white streak.

“If this was a Channing Tatum movie,” Steph observed, “the best way to weasel our way into their good graces would be for you to do an even more epic kegstand.”

Jason said, “That is not going to happen.”

“I’m just saying,” Steph said, shrugging. “I think you could out-kegstand Michael-Angelo in there. His arms were like limp noodles. I bet he’d faceplant if they let go of his legs.”

“Are you seriously trying to peer pressure me into doing a kegstand?” Jason said. “Unbelievable. And to think I was led to believe you were the sweet one.”

Steph actually snorted out loud. “Oh my god. Who said that? Please tell me. Was it Damian? I bet it was Damian. He’s been looking for revenge ever since he had fun in that moon bounce.”

Jason blinked. “Damian had fun in a moon bounce?”

“He was so begrudging of it, dude, it was amazing,” Steph said, happy to dish. 

“Did you take a picture of _that_?” Jason asked, looking like he wanted to take her phone and start scrolling through the pictures. 

“Unfortunately not,” Steph said, making a face. “I tried to talk Babs into finding the security footage and sending me a copy but she claimed it was all corrupted. I think she’s hoarding blackmail material.”

“You really aren’t what I expected,” Jason said, leaning back against the railing and smiling at her. Steph valiantly ignored the feelings that inspired and just shrugged.

“Yeah, I expected you to be a lot… well. There’s not really a kind word I can finish that sentence with,” she said. “You, my friend, are a very sore point.”

“Good,” he muttered, and yeah, Steph knew that tone. She’d been using that vindictive tone since before the first time she’d put on the Spoiler outfit and completely ruined her Dad’s sad attempt of a crime spree. 

Maybe every vigilante in Gotham had had a point when they’d made comparisons between her and Jason. Maybe. She was absolutely not going to admit it out loud, though.

“Oh, hey,” Steph said, looking over Jason’s shoulder. “Sapersteins on the move!”

She abandoned her empty bottle on the stairs and lead the way out on the dance floor. Duchess and Michael-Angelo both had found partners and were doing what Steph could only describe as a boogie. 

She said, “You can dance, right?” before tugging Jason onto the improvised dance floor between a toppled-over coffee table and a couch with a pair of kids making out on it.

The look in Jason’s eye said that he could but he wasn’t entirely happy about it, but Stephanie Brown had dated Tim Drake for actual _years_. She had perfected the art of dragging a reluctant boy out on the dance floor. Besides, it was all in the name of justice.

Jason made a vague move like he was going to put his hands on her shoulders, middle school slow dance style, but Steph avoided that catastrophe by turning around and dancing up against him. This was done, of course, for purely tactical reasons, as they were now both facing the Sapersteins, but she took great delight in not informing Jason of that.

Really, for the resident family bad boy, she’d expected him to have much more game. It was endearing in a way she didn’t examine too closely.

His hands eventually settled on her hips, and Steph tried not to focus on the sensation too much. It had been a long time since she’d been this close to someone attractive in a non combative situation, but she had to keep this professional. This was professional. They were just blending in.

Then Jason’s thumb stroked against the spot right above her hip bone and Steph could have swore it was a goddamn involuntary reaction to lean her head back against his chest, pressing herself more fully against him.

Totally professional, she reminded herself firmly, trying to keep her eyes on the Sapersteins, who were high-fiving over the heads of their respective dance partners. Gotta keep eyes on the criminal prize.

She was flush up against Jason, his arms warm around her, and it was all so distracting that it took her a moment to realize that Michael-Angelo was tucking something into his pocket.

The high-five.

She turned abruptly, still bracketed by Jason’s arms, and she stood on tiptoes to hiss in his ear, “They’ve got something on them.”

“Okay,” Jason said, voice a low rumble. Steph was proud to note that she wasn’t the only one affected by their dancing. There was a look in Jason’s eyes that made her want to forget the case and keep dancing forever. “Should we approach?”

“I think--” Steph began, but she was cut off by someone yelling, “Stephie!”

She reluctantly pulled herself away from Jason enough to ID the interloper. It was a girl she’d had a class with last semester, though she wasn’t a hundred percent on what her name was. She was pretty sure it ended with -elle? 

The girl was clearly hammered, and she patted Steph ferociously on the back. Jason took several steps back, clearly abandoning her to her fate.

“I’m so happy you’re here!” the girl said cheerfully. Was it Raquelle? Steph thought it was Raquelle.

“Me too!” Steph offered. She heard Jason snort quietly behind her, and she wished he was close enough for her to step on his foot. Though knowing their type, he was probably wearing steel-toed boots. She took the opportunity to look back at the Sapersteins, but they were gone.

“Like, it’s such a great coincidence,” Raquelle continued. Steph looked at her blankly. “The tournament? In the basement? You have to enter!”

“Um,” Steph said. 

“Beer pong!” said one of Raquelle’s flock of obviously inebriated friends. “The competition is fierce.”

“But I know how great you are at ping pong, and like, that translates,” Raquelle said. She clapped Steph on the back. “A new round is starting up soon. I bet you could beat the Sapersteins!”

Steph stole a glance back at Jason. He looked like he wasn’t sure if this was the greatest or the worst thing he’d ever heard.

“I just gotta ask my dude if he’s down,” Steph said, gesturing vaguely towards Jason.

Raquelle seemed to notice him for the first time, which-- Steph wondered if she was blind? How was Jason not the first thing she’d noticed?

As she approached, Jason asked, clearly delighted, “Why are you infamously good at ping pong?”

“I might play sometimes in the student center,” Steph said, refusing to be ashamed. “It’s great stress relief.”

“I can think of better ways,” Jason said, and Steph wasn’t sure if he wanted it to be a come-on or not but wow did it put some images in her head.

“So are you into competitive beer pong?” she asked, because she needed to change the subject. She gave him her very best ‘please say no’ look. There was no way it would end well. They could totally find another way to bond with the Sapersteins…

“Hell yeah,” Jason said instead, because after all, he was a known asshole. Steph gave him a look that she hoped told him that she thought so, and they followed Raquelle down to the basement.

She wasn’t sure what she expected -- a folding table and some Solo cups, yeah, but she was absolutely not expecting actual risers lined up on one wall filled with people, and a desk in the corner manned by a dude wearing sunglasses in the already dim basement, clearly taking bets. A chalkboard listing the brackets was on the wall behind him, and Raquelle led them to it.

“I’ve got your winners right here,” Raquelle announced grandly, and honestly, Steph hadn’t made that big of a show about her ping pong skills. Jason just looked like this was the best date he’d ever been on.

“Cool, cool, cool,” the dude said, “I need some names.”

“Steph and--” Raquelle looked at them expectantly.

Shit, they hadn’t thought of a name for Jason.

“Stripe,” Steph said decisively, before Jason could say anything. “You know, like the gremlin.”

Revenge was sweet.

She wished that she had a video of the face journey Jason undertook as he was congratulated on his hairstyle and dedication to a classic.

“You’re up at the end of this round,” the dude told them, and Jason led Steph to an empty section on the risers. 

“This is not where I anticipated tonight going,” Jason said, looking around the room.

“Me either,” Steph said, heartfelt. “I mean. What party is like this? I’m guessing none. But I always warn everyone that my experiences with parties end weirdly.”

Twelve hours ago she’d been snoozing in the school library, and now she was set to compete in an underground beer pong league with a known killer. Her life, seriously. Not like other people’s at all.

“I mean, if it makes you uncomfortable, we can go,” Jason said after a moment.

“Nah,” Steph said. “I ain’t scared.”

Jason, she was finding, was downright adorable when he snickered.

There were thankfully only two brackets in the current round of competition, so they would only have to defeat one other team before going up (presumably) against the Sapersteins, who were already going hard at their round. There was a lot of trash talk happening, but Steph was confident that between her and Jason their trash talk game would be up to par. The only real problem that Steph could see was that there was a high likelihood that they were going to end up so, so drunk, given how skilled the Sapersteins were.

“We have to annihilate our first opponent,” Steph hissed. 

“I am fucking awesome at this game,” Jason whispered back, clearly affronted. 

Steph raised an eyebrow. When had Jason--

She remembered, abruptly, that he’d spent a lot of time with Roy Harper. They definitely were going to annihilate everyone they came up against. They were going to be the dynamic duo of beer pong.

The Sapersteins emerged victorious, with Duchess dunking the final ping pong ball with surprising accuracy. They were clearly the crowd favorite.

Their first opponents were a pair of guys who looked way too old to be undergrads. Steph hoped they were grad students gone on a thesis-angst bender and weren’t sad never-grow-up types, but it was her duty to destroy them either way. 

Jason, true to his word, turned out to be awesome at beer pong, and they both hit their cups on the first try, every try. Their opponents only managed to get one cup before they were knocked out of the competition. It turned out the house belonged to them, and they fancied themselves expert beer pong players, which made victory all the sweeter.

Steph high-fived Jason, doing a victory dance for the cheering crowd.

Everyone was given a fifteen-minute break while the table was set up for the grand slam event, and Steph took it upon herself to introduce herself to the competition.

“Good round,” she told them as she approached. “I’m Steph, and this is my…” -- there was no word she felt okay attaching to Jason there, so instead she did a little Vanna White gesture displaying him to the Sapersteins -- “Stripe.”

“I am Duchess,” said Duchess grandly, doing her own Vanna White impersonation, only putting her own assets on display. Further on display. Steph was pretty sure she could see Duchess’ underwire from here. “And my brother, Michael-Angelo, is quite into your form out there.”

Michael-Angelo nodded and announced in an equally grand tone, “Your breasts jiggle most magnificently.” He chose to punctuate his sentence by miming said jiggle.

Jason grabbed her hand before she could punch Michael-Angelo’s face in, encasing her fist in his own as he informed Michael-Angelo in no uncertain terms that Steph and all her parts were his to admire, not anyone else’s.

Steph appreciated the sentiment, though she really just wanted to announce loudly that she was not a thing. She settled for texting Jason an appropriate Fury Road gif, and reminded herself that Red Hood would likely be smashing through the Sapersteins very soon.

“Got it, I dig it,” Michael-Angelo continued blithely, unaware of how close he had come to a broken nose. He looked appreciatively at Jason’s arms. “But, just throwing an idea out there, what after we win, we all go upstairs, huff some paint, take off some clothes together?”

 

Duchess smiled winningly at them. Steph chose to let Jason handle this response, too.

“Maybe next time,” he said vaguely.

“Excellent, it’s a date,” Michael-Angelo said. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to plan your ultimate destruction.”

“Ditto,” Steph said, and they left the Sapersteins as they were.

“That was unhelpful,” Jason said when they returned to their side of the table. It was set up now, and Steph did a few stretches to make sure she was ready for some serious beer pong.

“You’re the one who turned down his offer,” Steph said. “Though was it for a threesome or a foursome? That’s bugging me a bit.”

“They’re siblings,” Jason said. “Definitely a threesome offer.”

“Does that mean a night with you and Tim is off the table?” Steph asked, seeing her window of opportunity and leaping through it full-tilt.

Jason sputtered cartoonishly while Steph laughed her ass off.

Then it was time to compete. Steph had never felt so much like she was in the final showdown of an eighties flick. It was amazing. The only thing missing was a training montage and a kick-ass soundtrack.

As if on cue, Duchess pulled her phone out of her bra, turned on The Final Countdown, and tucked the phone back into her bra. The song was slightly muffled, but Steph appreciated what it did for the ambiance.

What followed was probably the most perfect game of beer pong ever played. No one missed. Not a single shot went astray. It was epic, and by the sixth round she was actively cheering for the Sapersteins, hoping for a fabled perfect game.

She flung her arms around Jason and cheered when she made her next toss, and it was a teensy bit possible that she was tipsy. It was getting harder and harder to remember that she was working a case and not actually on a date with Jason. Probably there was a reason that Bruce frowned upon drinking especially while on the job.

Probably there were a lot of reasons, but… Verisimilitude!

“Verisi-similitude,” she told Jason very seriously.

“I don’t think that means what you think that means,” he told her, and Steph began giggling because Jason was the very last person who should be making Princess Bride jokes.

“Why?” he asked.

Steph was really going to have to work on that internal monologue thing. “Because, you know. _I was only mostly dead_.” She dropped her smile. “Wait, nevermind, that one was me.”

Jason patted her on the head and said, “Just one more round, cupcake.”

“I’ll round you,” Steph muttered at him, but was grateful that it was both Jason’s turn to drink and toss. Because the Sapersteins -- who seemed no more worse for wear than when the game started -- got theirs, and a few moments later, to the thunderous applause of the audience, Jason managed a perfect toss right into the final Solo cup.

The basement filled with cheers, and Steph pretty much knew what high school football players felt like all the time. It was totally fucking awesome.

“This is totally fucking awesome,” she told Duchess Saperstein as they chest-bumped their victory. It totally hurt -- Steph was pretty sure Duchess had an arsenal tucked away inside her top -- but glory is pain and all that.

“This is off the hizzy!” Michael-Angelo shouted, smacking a kiss onto both hers and Jason’s cheeks. “Co-fucking-champions!”

That, of course, started a chant, and Steph felt she had earned the right to a celebration. Jason was laughing and hoisting the trophy (made of duct-taped beer cans with CHAMP written on it in sharpie) in the air like it was the Stanley Cup, and-- well, the mission was to get in with the target, right? No better way than to join them in some light revelry.

“Totally method,” she told Jason the next time he was swept in the tide of people near her, and he nodded back at her. 

There was dancing and laughing and singing loudly for a while, and then Jason was beside her, pressing a cup into her hands. When she took a drink, it disappointingly revealed itself to be water. She looked at the water in disappointment for a minute before remembering that water was what she should have been drinking all night, and resolutely downed it. It was totally unfair that Jason was being the mom friend and Steph had no one there to witness it.

They’ve accomplished their goal, though, she was proud to note. The Sapersteins were singing songs of their glory in the battlefield of beer pong, and she has been dragged to the bathroom with Duchess not once but twice.

It was on the second trip that she finally managed to see Duchess’ unlock code for her phone. Duchess had been sending out an endless flurry of texts, tweets and Snapchats all night -- Steph had tried her best to avoid having her face in any, but honestly, it wouldn’t do anything but help her reputation around school. She wasn’t technically the one undercover here. 

The hard part would be swiping the damn thing, considering that Duchess kept it tucked into her bra whenever it wasn’t in her hand.

“Jason, I mean Stripe, Stripe,” Steph said after she’d escaped the bathroom where she’d been forced to make up some totally, regretfully fictitious facts about her and Jason’s sex life to Duchess. “The eagle has landed. I mean. I totally got the eagle’s code, and now it’s your turn to land the damn thing.”

“I-- What?” Jason had gained a tiara at some point, and it’s perched jauntily on his head. Steph reached up and settles it more firmly on his head.

“I know Duchess’ phone code,” Steph said slowly, like she was explaining it to a toddler. “You have to get it for me.”

“Why me?” Jason asked. “You’re bathroom buddies with her.”

“Yes, but I’m not boobie buddies with her, and that’s where she keeps stashing it. All you have to do is feel her up a little and snag the phone. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” Steph had thought of the cunning plan on her way back from the bathroom.

“You want me to feel up the suspect?” Jason said doubtfully. “That seems amoral, somehow.”

Steph rolled her eyes. “I thought amoral was your wheelhouse.”

“This is a terrible idea,” Jason said before heading resolutely in Duchess’ direction. Steph trailed along at a respectful distance, because there was no fucking way she’s missing this comedy of errors.

The one thing her cunning plan hadn’t counted on was Jason’s utter lack of game. She knew this about him. She’d noticed it a few hours ago. And yet, she was still surprised when his big come-on was to offer Duchess the tiara he’d been wearing and offered to crown her his queen of love and beauty.

“Neeeerd,” Duchess sing-songed. “Look at this neeeerd.”

Michael-Angelo appeared out of nowhere to join in, and they actually danced circles around Jason, singing an ode to his failure to be cool.

Steph showed considerable restraint and only recorded a little of it. A girl needed all the blackmail material she could get her hands on, after all, and this was some prime shit.

The best part was that Duchess’s dance was athletic enough to send her phone flying somewhere after the second attempt at twerking, and Steph managed to grab it before Duchess even noticed. 

“The eagle has fully landed,” she told a red-faced Jason when he was free from his public mocking. She grabbed the tiara out of his hand and settled it on her own head happily. “C’mon.”

Neither of them were in any condition to get on Jason’s bike, so she led him upstairs. She heard a wolf-whistle come from a Saperstein, and she did triumphant finger-guns back. Jason let out a startled burst of laughter, no doubt thinking of what he was going to do to Saperstein Sr in a few days, if the info checked out.

She faltered as she took the next step, and Jason’s hand immediately was at her waist, steadying her. She really shouldn’t be here with him. She hadn’t even made him promise to stick to nonlethal methods! But really, so far everything he’d done had been virtually identical to how she would conduct her own investigation, and no one had been hurt, and no laws broken, except that pesky drinking age one. 

Besides-- after her ordeal, she’d had time to go away and live a peaceful life. That time had cost her a lot of things, and it hadn’t been her choice to be there, but she couldn’t deny that sometimes her dreams of a sun-baked savannah were the sweetest. Jason had never had that, and he was just as entrenched in the darkness that leached everything simple and good out of Gotham as he’d been before his death. 

He needed to be trusted, and he needed to know that he was important. Steph hadn’t anticipated being that person, but it felt right that it was her. She understood what Gotham could truly do to you if you were born into its underbelly more than Bruce or Babs or Dick or Tim ever would.

Next time Cass was in town, the three of them were hanging out, she decided. 

All the bedrooms upstairs were occupied, but Jason had zero qualms about shoo-ing a partially-clad couple out of the choicest room, claiming his rights as beer pong victor.

“You’re totally milking that shit,” Steph giggled, and then realized Jason had set the trophy down beside the bed. “Oh my god. Are you keeping it?”

“This is the first honest thing I’ve ever won,” Jason said seriously. “Hell yeah I’m keeping it. I’m breaking into Wayne Manor tomorrow and putting it on the fucking mantle.”

Steph totally lost it at that point, and fell back on the bed laughing. Jason’s shoulders were shaking, and it was like the sum total of the ridiculousness of the night hit them at once, and she found herself clinging to Jason’s shoulders, sputtering out her favorite escapades so far. She perched the tiara back on his head, proclaiming as gallantly as she could, “I name you my queen of love and beauty.”

“Shit,” Jason said. “That is so fucking nerdy,” and they lost it again.

Eventually, it dawned on them that they had crime-fighting to accomplish, and Steph broke into Duchess’ phone. 

“There are a _lot_ of nudes on here,” Steph said, impressed, scrolling through Duchess’ photos. “Like, am I just boring? I don’t have this many on my phone. I didn’t think _anyone_ did.”

“I don’t know, maybe you should let me see yours and I’ll tell you if there are a normal number,” Jason said, holding his hand out. 

Steph batted it away and said, “You wouldn’t know normal if it bit you in the ass.”

Jason settled in closer to her, his shoulders bumped up against hers as they propped themselves up against the pillows. Steph kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs comfortably up against his. It made it easier to scroll through Duchess’ phone together, with the added benefit of making her feel all bubbly and warm inside.

Duchess was not a spymaster supreme, and it only took a few more minutes before they had found the shipment date, time, location, and an idea of which players were going to be on the scene. There was also a slew of emails and texts proving that they knew they were selling lethal shit to kids, and Jason efficiently synced all the relevant data to a burner phone. 

“Evidence?” Steph said hopefully.

“Yeah,” Jason said after a beat. 

“They’d go to Blackgate for sure on that, if you catch them in the act,” Steph pointed out. Duchess and Michael-Angelo were sloppy; evidence would pile up quickly for any semi-competent lawyer.

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Jason said, and-- Steph was pretty sure he wasn’t being glib. He looked quietly contemplative, like he was thinking that maybe the best placement of his bullets wouldn’t be lethal.

“Get shot in the right spot, and that causes a lifetime of problems,” Steph said. “My dad, he had a friend who caught a bullet wrong and messed up his arm real good. Never forgot the man who put it in him.”

Steph flipped through Duchess’ phone and casually deleted every picture that showed Jason’s face clearly. Jason watched silently, and then caught her hand by the wrist, his thumb pressing against her pulse in a way that made her want to whimper.

“Thanks,” he said, voice husky. “For--”

“It’s nothing,” Steph said, cutting him off. “I’ve very much enjoyed getting to know you, Jason Todd.”

“Likewise,” Jason said, and pressed a soft kiss on the side of her mouth.

Steph reached up and touched his jawline, rough with the faint beginnings of stubble, and gently guided him the last inch to make it a proper kiss. 

Jason was gentler than she would have suspected, kissing her soft and sweet. Steph normally wasn’t the patient type, but she felt no need to rush him along. She thought she could stay like this for hours, cuddled up against him and letting him treat her like something precious.

She tucked her leg more comfortably over his. They fit together nicely; they were both built solidly. It was a nice to feel -- not exactly dainty, because Steph wasn’t, but like she wouldn’t break Jason even if she tried. 

She’d never quite felt that way with Tim; there was something bird-like about his frame that had always worried Steph. He was tough as nails, but sometimes he looked like a strong wind might take him out.

Steph thought she might still be buzzed, because lazily making out with Jason was inarguably a bad idea, but she didn’t have the will to want to break it off. She at least knew better than to let this go any further -- she wasn’t _that_ drunk -- and Jason seemed to be on the same page, his hands slowly drifting up and down her sides but making no move to slide under her clothes. 

Besides, Steph’s luck had never been great with even the best of intentions, and this -- it was a bad idea, given _everything_ , but it didn’t feel like a mistake. 

“Did you mean what you said earlier?” Jason mumbled later, sleepy and content, as they lay curled together. The dim room was lit enough from the streetlight outside that she could see how soft he looked, how disarmed.

“I said a lot of things.” She traced her fingers lightly over the white streak in his hair. “But yeah, I do in fact think you look like a badass gremlin.”

He pushed her hand away, looking serious.

“Do you really think I could… be someone? Have a life again?” She knew that tone, too. It one you used when you’d been keeping the words held tight inside, precious and and delicate as new life, and you feared the wrong word would snuff it out.

“Of course,” she said without hesitation. “Yeah, you’ve done some awful shit, and I know there were some mitigating circumstances in there somewhere, but that doesn’t excuse them. What that means is you have to have a life again. Not to sound like Alfred or anything, but you have to do good to outweigh the things that are bearing down on your soul.” 

She went quiet for a minute, and Jason didn’t speak a word. Then she looked up into his eyes, took his hand in hers and said, “I’ve made mistakes, too. Some of my choices haunt me, too. And the only way to put them behind me is to keep moving forward. So I think you need to move forward with your life, too.”

Jason squeezed her hand tight. 

Then she yawned and snuggled deeper into her pillow. “Of course I’ve been awake for too many hours on too few hours sleep, so you might want to ask me again in the morning.”

Jason laughed, a quiet, intimate sound, and Steph smiled blearily at him before letting her eyes drift closed.

*

“ _\--Annie are you okay, are you okay--_ ”

“Urg,” Steph groaned, slapping at the mattress around her in an attempt to make the music stop. She didn’t remember setting her ring tone to a mediocre cover of a Michael Jackson song, but that was the only explanation.

She stopped her attempts when instead of hitting the bed itself she decked Jason Todd in the gut instead.

“What the actual fuck,” Jason wheezed. 

“Sorry,” Steph said sheepishly. “I’m trying to stop a smooth criminal. Guess I got the wrong one.”

It was too early to actually mime hitting a cymbal but in her heart Steph did.

Jason squinted at her. “I can’t believe I’m taking life advice from you.”

Steph almost jumped out of her freaking skin when the distinct, terrible tone of Duchess Saperstein’s voice came from the floor. “Where’s my phone?” 

Steph exchanged a look with Jason and they both peeked over the side of the bed. Both Sapersteins were sprawled on the floor, each cocooned in an improvised blanket. Duchess’ appeared to be a couch cover; Michael-Angelo was wearing a rug. 

Shifting her weight to look over the side revealed that the phone in question had been underneath her ass the whole time, and Steph carefully draped herself over Jason in order to delicately place the phone on the floor and nudge it towards Duchess, who answered it with a, “What’s crackin’?”

“Smooth criminal,” Steph mouthed at Jason, who looked just as incredulous. 

Duchess’ conversation seemed to be going poorly, and she shook Michael-Angelo awake, saying something about someone or thing named Bowser eating too many jello shots for breakfast.

The Sapersteins stumbled out of the room. 

“When did they come in here?” Steph wondered. “And how did we not notice?”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Jason said. “Unknowingly sharing a room with the subject of your investigation is a pretty big no-no, even for me.”

“Deal,” Steph said. “God, those two are the worst. Do you think Bowser is an animal or a human?”

“I don’t even want to know,” Jason said. 

“What time is it even?” Steph muttered, squinting at the window. The light coming in through the window was dim enough that she wasn’t too worried, though probably her mom would worry if she came home from her shift to find Steph gone.

Steph was not known for being an early riser.

She did some more searching and finally found her phone stuck under Jason’s pillow. The battery was completely dead, so Steph -- somewhat reluctantly, despite how questionable the bed itself was -- crawled out of bed to plug it in.

After a few minutes it powered up, and wow, Steph never got that many messages---

“Oh no,” she said.

Jason paused mid-way through tying his boot lace, looking at her inquisitively.

The most recent missed text was a simple “Glad you made good choices,” followed by emojis crying tears of laughter, which-- Steph didn’t even know Babs knew of that particular emoji, okay, this was clearly a prelude to disaster.

She opened up her recent texts, dreading what horrors might await her here, and---

“I might have made a teensy mistake,” Steph said, “which as you’ll remember I’ve already admitted that I sometimes do, and I’m sure you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”

“I make no promises,” Jason said, and Steph silently held out her phone.

At some point -- she thinks in the giddy, drunken victory celebration, judging by the confetti in her hair -- she’d texted Bruce Wayne, the Batman himself, a photo of her and Jason both kissing their beer pong victory trophy.

 _see look we do play well with others_ read the text underneath, and Bruce-- Bruce had not dignified it with a response, but she just knew the look she was going to get the next time she saw him.

“You know,” she said contemplatively, while waiting for Jason to finish undergoing his current emotional journey, “the best thing about being Batgirl is I never actually have to go to the Batcave. In theory I could avoid that whole situation for years. Forever, if I try hard enough.”

“Nope,” Jason said, a fuck-em-all gleam in his eye, “because now we have to sneak the trophy into the cave, not the mansion. I’m thinking superglued on top of the giant penny?”

Steph considered it a moment. Jason was right. They had to confront this head-on. “No way, put it in the t-rex’s tiny hands. I think it’s the perfect size.”

They grinned at each other. Seriously, why hadn’t they teamed up before? Steph was judging her past self.

“Come on, I’ll give you a ride home,” Jason said, tying off his boot and standing. 

“Cool, cool,” Steph said, wandering around the room to find her shoes. They’d been -- somehow, she wasn’t going to question it too deeply, given the surprise appearance of the Sapersteins -- tucked on the top shelf of a bookshelf. She gave in to paranoia and shook them out before sticking her feet inside, then she followed Jason to his bike. 

It was amazing no one tried to pull them over, given that the trophy was bungeed to the back of the bike.

*

Steph managed to make it home before her mom, which was nice, and saying good-bye to Jason wasn’t awkward at all, which was doubly nice. He left his helmet on -- Steph was going to have to come up with some helmet-related zingers if she was going to be spending time with Jason -- so she squeezed him in a hug and blew him a kiss as she jogged towards her door.

Jason mimed catching the kiss. Apparently Bruce solely chose goobers to be Robin. That was her takeaway from all this. Goobers who were extremely good at pretending to be badasses. 

She wondered if she should bring up this theory next time she saw Tim. 

She braved the messages on her phone-- Cass had loved the bubbles, of course, because Cass was a goddamn goddess who appreciated the finer things in life. Tim had sent her a single question mark, and Steph had to assume he’d seen the photo she’d sent to Bruce, but she took great joy in replying, _how did the riddler get my number._

Babs wanted to have lunch with her again and Steph should really feel honored that she was taking time out of her busy world-saving schedule to do human things like lunch and worry about errant Batgirls, but instead she just wanted to hide from the inevitable lectures about how dangerous Jason was and how she shouldn’t get too close.

Never mind that everyone freaking worked with him, and then spent the next few days saying how it was a one-time thing and how he needed to change his ways.

Steph wasn’t sure when she got so defensive of Jason, but she knew that her own hot-and-cold reception by the Bats in general was a driving force. It wasn’t just, you know, being kissing buddies with the dude. 

But it was Babs, so she agreed to meet her. 

It was still early enough that she got to crash back into bed, blissfully catching up on a few hours’ lost sleep. Her bed felt weirdly big and empty, but she tried not to think on that too hard.

*

Babs didn’t say anything when Steph slid in across from her at their favorite diner. 

“I know, I know,” Steph said after ordering herself a plate of waffles and whipped cream, because she deserved nice things. “I should have told you who I was planning on being social with.”

Babs’ mouth quirked a bit.

“Even though you obviously already knew, ugh,” Steph said. She had no food, there was nothing she could throw at Babs. She settled for the very mature response of sticking out her tongue. 

“To be fair, it _is_ my job to know these things,” Babs said. “So just how social were you?”

“I didn’t sleep with him,” Steph said primly. “Well. I didn’t have sex with him.”

“Yet?” Babs knew her way too well.

“I can’t see the future,” Steph said. “Nothing is for certain!”

“Uh-huh,” Babs said. “I’m pretty sure that this is why we all wanted to keep you two apart.”

“You--” Steph stopped in order to further parse out all the implications of what Babs had just said. “I mean, I noticed that I was never invited to any of the team-ups, but I thought it was just you guys being… you guys.” 

“Bruce never explicitly said anything,” Babs said, “but it’s pretty obvious you two would get on like a house on fire. I mean, you know how Bruce compared you two back when you first worked with him.”

Steph wasn’t sure why everyone talked around her brief stint as Robin. “I”m sure it got worse after I died, too.”

Babs nodded but didn’t elaborate. Steph was grateful; she was happy to stay ignorant.

“We did good work, though,” Steph said. “Got info confirming a shipment of lethal drugs with intent to sell, the key players that are going to be there, and the suspects are none the wiser.”

“Are you going to assist with the takedown?” The unspoken question lingered under Babs’ words. Is Jason going to murder the suspects, or is he going to let justice take its course?

“I think so,” Steph said. “We talked, Babs. I think…” She didn’t know how to put things into words, when Jason hadn’t said anything concrete. “What is Jason’s status? As a legal person?”

Babs said, carefully, “Very tenuous.”

“That’s what I thought,” Steph said. “I think you should fix that. I mean. Jason Todd, adoptee of a billionaire, can’t really come back without giving away a lot of secrets, but there’s no reason that Jason Todd can’t be a real live person again.”

“That’s harder than it sounds,” Babs said.

Steph was not buying into that. “Please. You brought me back, and I know that was a shitshow of paperwork.”

“It helped that you weren’t actually dead,” Babs offered.

“Leslie filled out those death certificates the same as if I were,” Steph said, glossing over the more terrifying things Leslie had told her about how long she’d been flatlined, about how close it had been, about how much brain damage Steph should, by all medical reasoning, actually have but somehow _didn’t_.

Babs tapped her fingers on the table. The waitress arrived and set a beautiful mountain of waffles and whipped cream in front of Steph, who hadn’t realized quite how hungry she was until that was in front of her.

“Why?” Babs said finally. 

“I think Jason needs something concrete in his life,” Steph answered through a full mouth. “He approached me in the library, when I was writing that paper? And he looked -- Babs, he looked kind of jealous of my _homework_. I think he’s been aimless too long. He needs to be a part of the world again.”

Babs nodded, looking like she was surprised she hadn’t come to the conclusion herself. Steph wasn’t; the other Bats were all exceptional in ways Steph knew she would never quite accomplish, but she was good at _people_. 

“I’ll get started on it,” she said. “Though Bruce--”

“Screw Bruce,” Steph muttered.

“Bruce will probably be happy to help,” Babs continued. “Once… Well, once we show him that all problems can’t be punched into submission.”

“Good luck there,” Steph said, mollified.

There was a pause before Babs said, “Beer pong champs? Really?”

“Technically co-champs, but we’re arresting those bitches soon so I’m calling it a win.”

*

Steph joined Jason at the docks on the night of the drop-off, bouncing on her toes and eager to kick some ass. She had the start of Jason’s new life tucked into one of her pouches, the ink still bright and fresh, and she couldn’t wait to give it to him.

First, though, came justice. 

Jason was loaded for bear, as always, but you didn’t grow up with a career criminal for a dad and not become somewhat used to the presence of guns. She understood Bruce’s stance on them, and supported it, because she’d rather kick a dude in the teeth any day, but she didn’t feel gut-deep revulsion at the thought of them.

“You came,” he said. Steph pretended not to hear the surprise in his voice. 

“Had to see this thing through,” she said, then bumped him with her shoulder to show him she didn’t just mean the case. 

“I’m willing to…” Jason glanced at her, the helmet over his face obscuring any expression he might have. “Do you have a connection to the GCPD? Someone who can get shit done with the evidence?”

Steph thought of Detective Gage, and hoped that he could. “Yes.”

Jason nodded. “I’m not promising I won’t shoot anyone,” he warned.

“But?” Steph asked, hearing it in his tone.

“But I’m going for nonlethal shots,” Jason said. 

Steph beamed at him and wrapped him in a hug. 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s enough,” Jason said, pulling his arms loose, but Steph could hear the smile in his voice. “We’ve got crime to stop and all that.”

“We are the night,” Steph offered, watching as some highly suspicious unmarked trucks peeled into the parking lot below. 

“Fuck yeah we are,” Jason said, and off they went.


End file.
